FullMetal Strife
by AC Aero
Summary: AU.While Cloud delves into the world of alchemy, Tifa heads out to join SOILDER. So two VERY different people end up joining Avalanche's quest. CloudxTifa, ZackxAeris


_**Disclaimer: **_I don't own Final Fantasy 7 or Full metal Alchemist.

_**Summary:**_ In a effort to revive his dead mother, Cloud loses his arm. Equipped with a metal Arm and his alchemy, he'll seek to save the planet with Avalanche.

**_Pairings: Main: _**CloudxTifa, **side:** ZackxAeris.

**Guide:**

"means dialogue is inside this"

_'thinking in progress'_

Chapter 1

--

"Cloud! Where are you?"

A woman opened the door to the family's study and peered inside. She had long blonde hair that managed to stick out in odd places. She wore a simple light blue nightgown. She blinked her blue eyes as she took in the sight of her son, drawing on the floor, surrounded by books placed haphazardly around him. She placed her hands on her hips, and scowled at her child. "Cloud! You made a mess...again." She was really getting tired of this. Her ire only increased when Cloud neither looked up, nor stopped his drawing. "Stop doodling." She demanded, starting to lose her temper.

Cloud Strife looked up from his position on the floor. Blue eyes clashed as he locked eyes with his mother. After a few seconds of intense staring, he looked back down and resumed his drawing. "I'm not doodling mom." Cloud mumbled as he threw the piece of chalk he held away. "Just watch." Cloud half asked, half stated as he put his hands on the array he had drawn. He lightly pushed down on it, and a flash of light appeared, blinding Cloud's mother. When she opened her eyes, she saw a wooden duck sitting in the circle.

"How...?" She asked, dropping down to her knees. She crawled closer to the circle and the duck Cloud had made, studying it closely.

"It's called alchemy." Cloud bragged, as he watched his mother poke the duck he had made. Hearing what Cloud had said, his mother dropped the duck, and stared at him. "This? It's alchemy...?" At Cloud's nod, she asked. "Who taught you this?"

Cloud gestured to all the books thrown around him. "I learned from these!" Cloud added, bragging to his mother. His mother picked up one of the open books and briefly skimmed it. "You understood this?" She asked shakily. She couldn't make heads or tails of this.

"Kind of." Cloud admitted, scowling. He hated not knowing something.

"My son's a genius..." His mother whispered, staring fondly at Cloud.

--

Cloud couldn't believe it. His mother had been sick. Sick beyond saving apparently. What shocked him the most was that she had managed to hide it from Cloud for so long! How didn't he notice something like that! Cloud cursed himself in his mind as he sat in front of his mother's tombstone. The funeral had been short, with not a lot of people attending. His mother hadn't been a social person, and Cloud had inherited that trait from her. His friend Tifa had done her best to comfort him, but he didn't want to be comforted, he wanted his mother back. Cloud stood up, having come to a deciscion that he'd end up regretting for the rest of his life. Throughout the whole affair, he refused to cry.

"I read that...you can bring humans back to life." Cloud said, speaking to hear something, rather than the silence that had been bothering him for a while now. He couldn't take it, not at this stage anyway. "It's called a homunculus. It might not be as great as being a human...but at least you'll be alive." Cloud continued to speak, not really caring if anyone heard him. "I WILL bring you back mom, it's a promise." Cloud told the tombstone, clenching his fist tightly.

--

"Urgh...this is hard" Cloud mumbled as he studied the book he was looking at. He was in math class, but had been completely focused on his project. Who cares if he failed math, or school? It wasn't like he had anyone to answer to anymore. _'let's see...cells 66, outer cell fluids 24, and...cell membrane 10...?'_

"Cloud pay attention!"

"Yes ma'am."

"Tifa! Wake up!"

"..."

--

"You've been studying a lot lately..." Tifa informed Cloud as she walked by him. She blinked her reddish brown eyes as she tried to make eye contact with Cloud, who avoided her gaze. She flicked some of her brown hair impatiently. "What are ya studying?" She finally asked.

"Secret." Cloud grunted.

"Waaah! Why is Cloud so mean?" Tifa asked no one in particular.

"That's life, deal with it." Cloud deadpanned. 'Transmuting a human seems hard...but not that difficult. So why is it forbidden?' Cloud thought morbidly as he walked home.

--

"I wish someone could teach me. It's hard learning on my own!" Cloud then shook his head to rid himself of the dark thoughts he'd been producing. _'Snap out of it Cloud! You have to improve on your own. No matter what!' _Cloud thought, as he once again delved into the alchemic books with renewed gusto.

'An alchemist must be strong in mind and body..." Cloud read aloud as he focused on a passage. "Experience is the greatest teacher of all...?"

"What the heck does that mean?" Cloud asked the room, knowing that it wouldn't answer.

--

In Cloud's 10 yr old mind, experience meant that he need to do something dangerous and survive. And the most dangerous thing he could think of doing was to travel along Mt. Nibel, alone, and stay there for a while. Cloud wasn't really sure, he'd been making this plan up as he went. He trudged along on the mountain path, stumbling over rocks and other things. He thought about quiting several times, but then he'd think about WHY he was doing this, and he'd force himself to move forward.

Cloud came across a rickety bridge that practically screamed danger. Cloud ignored the signs and walked right on the bridge. He realized at once that it was a mistake once he heard the bridge start to groan heavily under his weight. He heard the sound of someone yelling behind him. He turned around to see Tifa headed straight for him. Tifa leaped at him just as the bridge snapped. With a scream, both of them plunged downwards into the gorge below.

--

"Ugh..." Cloud groaned as he slowly regained consciousness. He pulled himself upwards as he recalled what happened. He quickly checked himself for injuries, finding that he had nothing more than some scrapped knees. Which really stung, now that he thought about it. He then began to look for Tifa when he felt something smack him in the back of his head. The blonde turned around with a glare, which quickly changed to fear as he saw who was glaring at him.

"What the hell were you thinking!" Tifa yelled as she began to pummel Cloud lightly with her fists.

"It's training Tifa! Training!!" Cloud yelled back.

"Training my ass!!"

"OW!! Stop hitting me!!"

"Do you know where we are?" Tifa asked, as she finished pounding on Cloud.

"Not really. I do know that Nibelhiem is that way." Cloud answered, pointing South of where they both had been facing.

"Okay then." Tifa ground out, marching forward. Cloud stared at her, wide eyed. "Are you coming or not?!" Tifa yelled, snapping Cloud out of his thoughts.

"I liked Tifa better when she didn't talk to me." Cloud mumbled, before following.

--

"There might be monsters here you know."

"Shut up Cloud!!"

"Do you even know where we're going?"

"..."

"I thought so." Cloud smirked as he took the lead. Tifa opened her mouth to tell Cloud what she thought of that idea, when her stomach growled, loudly. She blushed, only to hear Cloud's stomach join hers in growling.

"Hehehe...guess we're hungry." She said, placing her hand behind her head. She got nothing but a blank stare in return.

--

"What do we do now?" Tifa asked, locking eyes with Cloud. They had managed to catch a rabbit, and now had no idea what to do with it.

"We kill it." Cloud stated, drawing a circle and transmutating a knife from the surrounding rocks. Tifa flinched at the transmutation, but said nothing. She could always ask him about it later.

"Kill it?"

"Yep." Cloud answered, handing her the knife.

"Don't give me the knife!!"

"I'm not gonna do it."

"I've never killed before!!"

"Neither have I!!"

"But I'm a girl!!" As the two ten year olds were argueing, a hawk swooped down an stole their hard earned rabbit. Cloud and Tifa stared, shocked at the audacity of the hawk.

"That thing's dead." Both of them agreed, and did their best to follow the hawk.

--

Cloud glanced at Tifa, who had fallen asleep next to him. 'What does any of this have to do with alchemy?' Cloud asked himself. They had no idea how long they'd been traveling, but they were pretty sure they were heading in the right way. Cloud had noticed that the ground they had been walking on had been slowly increasing upwards. That meant that they were close to getting out of the gorge they had fallen into. As they slowly climbed out of the gorge, Cloud and Tifa changed in subtle ways. Both of them had become tougher for one. Another was that they had stopped wasting so much energy in their movements. They gained the skills needed to hunt, even if they didn't appreciate it. They had also matured. They had estimated that they had spent a little over a month climbing out of the gorge and walking towards town.

'Life flows! Cloud realized with a moment of clarity. "We're all living under certain rules. The ability to create and destroy using those rules...is alchemy!!" Cloud told himself as he walked into town with Tifa. Tifa frowned at him. "What are you talking about?"

"Hehehe...don't worry about it." Another byproduct of their adventure was the new closeness they had shared. _'This'll be tough telling everyone where we've been. But at least I understand it now. I haveta train my body...and my spirit.' _Cloud smirked to himself. "I'm just getting started." Cloud muttered.

Tifa glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. _'He's gotten weirder over the month.' _Tifa thought over her statement before sighing. _'Like I can talk.'_

--

"Where the hell have you been?!" Tifa's father yelled as he glared at the two ten year olds. Neither one answered, as they had been stuffing there faces full of food.

"Ask...later...gotta eat." Tifa mumbled. Cloud nodded his agreement with the statement. Mr. Lockhart sighed, before looking at both of the children again. Neither one looked that bad actually, they just appeared to be hungry. Not only that, but if Mr. Lockhart didn't know anybetter, he'd say that both of them had matured. He knew better than to see that aloud though. "So...where have you two been?" He asked conversationally.

He noted both of them adopted a dark look of horror. "Y-you don't have to tell me if you don't want to." He quickly placated, looking away. He looked away in time to miss the grins that Tifa and Cloud traded each other.

"This changes nothing...I'm still gonna do it!" Cloud yelled, putting his plate down. Tifa and her dad looked at Cloud in confusion. "Cloud, you're really weird."

--

"The foundation of alchemy's power is the circle." Cloud was shocked to find that reading all this stuff had been getting easier as time went by. He could actually understand most of it now. "The circle shows the nature of the power, and you may activate the power by writing alchemic formulas in there. By understanding the flow of power and laws of nature...I can apply it to everything." Cloud quickly glanced at the alchemic formulas he had written down. "I gotta memorize all of these?! Moving on to human transmutation theory..."

--

"Thirty five litters of water, twenty kilos of carbon, four litters of ammonia, one and a half kilos of lime. Eight hundred grams of phosphourus, two hundred fifty grams of niter, a hundred grams of sulfur, eighty grams of magnesium, one and a half grams of manganese, five grams of iron, three grams of silicon." Cloud gathered a large basin and could barely hold his excitement. After two years of studying, physical and mental training, twelve year Cloud was ready to bring his mother back. He poured all the materials into the basin and carefully drew a transmutation circle and the formula around it. Lastly, he pricked his finger, and let some blood drop in the mixture. Cloud pressed his hands on the seal and activated it. Cloud grinned as he saw the mound rise and begin to shape. A grin that quickly changed to a frown as he felt the wind around him change. Cloud screamed as he felt his right arm disintegrate.

'It's a rebound!!' Cloud thought as he felt his surrounding change. Cloud looked around and saw...nothing. White space all around him, the blonde whirled around him, and saw a large stone gate floating in front of him. He could see a multitude of formulas engraved on the wall. "What was I doing?" Cloud asked the wall. He noted that he still had both of his arms attached.

"Hey!" A voice startled him out of his staring. He'd assume he'd been alone. He turned, and saw, a fuzzy shape sitting in front him. "Who are you?"

The figure chuckled. "You're a calm one aren't ya? Most people would be panicking by now."

"Answer the question."

"I'm what you humans refer to as the "World","

"Or the Universe"

"Also God"

"Or true knowledge, or one or all."

"And you." The figure finished, pointing at Cloud, who's eye's widened.

The gate that Cloud had turned his back on had suddenly opened. Shadowy hands opened, and lashed out, wrapping themselves around Cloud, who screamed.

"Why are you screaming? You wanted this." The figure asked, not moving a inch. The last thing Cloud saw was the figure facing him. "I'll show you "True Knowledge" it said, just as the gate snapped shut, with Cloud inside.

--

"What the hell is this?!" Cloud screamed. His body had been stretched out into a strand, and had been joined by many other strands. Cloud could see imprints of various things on all the other strands. _'Do I look like that?' _Cloud couldn't help wondering.

_'Stop!!'_

_'My head's gonna explode!'_

_'No!' _Cloud thought as he felt and saw his arm slowly unravel himself. He glanced upwards, and saw a single eye opened itself forward. Beyond the eye, he saw a figure standing there. A very familiar figure with long spiky blonde hair. "MOM!" Cloud yelled, reaching his hands forward. He screamed as he felt the rest of his body begin to unravel itself. He was shocked even further when the gate closed on him, locking him out, and away from his mother.

--

Cloud found himself standing outside the gate once again, with all limbs attached. He was breathing hard, staring horrified at the gate.

"How was it?" That same strange asked, calmly.

_'Did he move at all?'_

"Like a bunch of information's been crammed into my head...But, I understand the "True Knowledge."

"My theory wasn't wrong...it just lacked something. I saw it there." Cloud said, pounding on the gates. "Let me see it again! One more time!!" Cloud yelled as he banged on the gates.

"No can do." The figure answered as it stood up. "That's all I can do for the traffic fee."

"Fee...?" Cloud asked, turning his head to look at the figure.

"That's right." The figure said as it walked forward. Cloud's arm started unraveling, (AGAIN) and rebuilt itself on the figure's nonexisting arm. The figure leaned in front of Cloud and thrust HIS arm in his face. "Equivalent exchange no?" It leered.

--

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!" Cloud screamed as he clutched his bleeding shoulder. He found himself back in his room, and unlike before when he woke up, his arm was still gone. No being reattached this time.

"Shit...This can't be happening..." Cloud cried. He glanced up, looking into the circle once again, and forgot all about his pain. In the circle wasn't his mother...or even a person. It was female, and had pulsing red skin. It had a few strands of brown hair sticking out in various places, and random arms jutting out in places. Cloud counted four of em. Cloud backed up as far as he could go when he saw it raise a normal colored, human arm.

"N-no...not like this..." Cloud mumbled, growing more horrified by the second. It suddenly spat out blood, and resumed it's wiggling. Cloud stared for a second, then proceeded to throw up on the floor. He then hastily drew a circle using his own blood. Growing more fatigued by the second, he quickly put up a wall between the thing and himself. With that act finished, Cloud passed out.

--

"Do you really want this?" The man asked catiously. The kid he was talking was short, though it was hard to tell because he was lying down. He had spikey blonde hair that'd been matted down by the pillow he had been laying on. The most interesting thing was the lack of a right arm. Eleven year old Cloud glared at the doctor. Cloud hadn't told anyone what had happened that day several weeks ago. Eventually they stopped asking him, but that didn't stop anyone from wondering about it.

"Yeah. Asking me over and over won't change a thing. How long will the surgery take?" Cloud asked, closing his eyes.

"Surgery and rehabilitation will take about 3 years, give or take."

"I'll do it in a year."

"Huh?" The man asked, staring at Cloud, who slowly opened his eyes. "I'll finish the rehabilitation and surgery in a year."

"Whatever you say kid."

"And I'll need to learn how to maintain it and fix it when it breaks."

"Yeah, yeah..."

--

"You really did it in a year" Tifa said, awed by Cloud's...stubborness.

"I always keep my word." Cloud replied. They had chosen to meet at their usual spot, on top of the water tower. It was an out of area place, so not many came here. Cloud kept twitching his metal arm. He'd gotten use to it of course, but it still felt weird.

"I heard about this really powerful SOILDER" Tifa said, catching Cloud's attention. Only an idiot wouldn't know about SOILDER. They were an elite unit of the Shinra company. They had 3 classes, and the higher the class, the more skilled you were. What most people, Cloud and Tifa included, didn't know was how their eyes glowed an ethreal blue.

"His name's Sephiroth." Tifa continued. Cloud twitched. That name sounded really familiar, he just couldn't place it. "I'm thinking about joining SOILDER," Tifa continued.

"Why?" Cloud asked.

"To protect...my friends..." Tifa whispered, locking eyes with Cloud, who blushed and looked away.

"I'll leave tomorrow." Tifa said, hoping to gain a reaction from Cloud. She was pleased to see a slight change in his posture. That wouldn't matter to most, but Tifa knew Cloud best. She knew he was uncomfortable. "Let's make a deal."

"Deal?"

"Yeah! If you're ever in trouble, and need my help, I'll come running!!" Tifa said, jumping up. Cloud raised an eyebrow, but shook his head slowly.

"A deal like that goes both ways Tifa. So if you need help..." He trailed off, not really needing to finish. Instead, he clapped his hands together, and transmutated his arm into a blade. "I'll protect you." He finished solemnly.

"How long could you do that without a circle?" Tifa asked, staring at Cloud's bladed hand.

"for a while now..."

"What are you gonna do Cloud?" Tifa suddenly asked, looking at him.

"I'm still learning how to maintain and repair my automail. After that..." Cloud shrugged. He really had no idea what he was planning to do. He'd thought about trying to restore his arm, but he figured that trying that would make his situation worse. "I think I'll try to get stronger."

"No. I WILL get stronger."

"You're such a drama queen Cloud." Tifa giggled.

"Shut up."

--

This is an idea I came up with. The pairing's CloudxTifa, obviously. I've never written a Final Fantasy Fic before, so...lemme know if I made a mistake.

Leave reviews, tell me your thoughts...blah blah blah.


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